Venues and promoters would be able to apply filters to get back only their events for their own websites.

Most events organisations really don’t have the database skills to run their own events databases (just as most training providers don’t have the database skills to run their own course databases). Even if they were to use another service (in the vein of upcoming) and then syndicate [just] their own stuff back it would be a leap forward for many venues and promoters.

I agree with the ideal situation of event organisers only having to enter their event details in one place and this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. The woib site used to automatically add any events added to upcoming.org and evdb but the api for upcoming changed and i’ve never got around to trying to sort it.

The main problem with having a central event adding place is that all events websites will have the same information and what’s the point in that? The biggest attraction of woib is the large amount of events listed.

I suppose if everyone had access to a huge database of events the focus would move to how well the information is used.

Events are not necessarily quite as standard as you would first imagine. Take for instance a typical concert performance (1 night only) versus a run of dates at a theatre, versus an art exhibition, versus a tour (same show, different venues).

You are right though, the iCal format has much of the info required to support the raw information, if not the marketing and copy function (video preview via iCal?). Perhaps this could be done via a standardised url/fragment or XML microformat enclosure within the description.

That said, I can’t believe that venues and promoters will continue to roll-out their own event and/or ticketing systems, or journos to hand-compile their event listings in the years to come. There’s a real need for a centralised system; the iTunes store for events. Particularly as most big-vendor online ticketing systems ,frankly, suck.

upcoming.org was the obvious contender up until about six months ago, but like everything else on the Internet it’s coming under major fire from Facebook.

I can’t believe RSS is missing. Some Microformat support (which requires no additional coding, just changes) would be nice as well.

ps, your venue guide link is dead.